The present invention relates generally to biosynthetic processes, and more specifically to organisms having specific length fatty alcohol, fatty aldehyde or fatty acid biosynthetic capacity.
Primary alcohols are a product class of compounds having a variety of industrial applications which include a variety of biofuels and specialty chemicals. Primary alcohols also can be used to make a large number of additional industrial products including polymers and surfactants. For example, higher primary alcohols, also known as fatty alcohols (C4-C24) and their ethoxylates are used as surfactants in many consumer detergents, cleaning products and personal care products worldwide such as laundry powders and liquids, dishwashing liquid and hard surface cleaners. They are also used in the manufacture of a variety of industrial chemicals and in lubricating oil additives. Specific length fatty alcohols, such as octanol and hexanol, have useful organoleptic properties and have long been employed as fragrance and flavor materials. Smaller chain length C4-C8 alcohols (e.g., butanol) are used as chemical intermediates for production of derivatives such as acrylates used in paints, coatings, and adhesives applications.
Fatty alcohols are currently produced from, for example, hydrogenation of fatty acids, hydroformylation of terminal olefins, partial oxidation of n-paraffins and the Al-catalyzed polymerization of ethylene. Unfortunately, it is not commercially viable to produce fatty alcohols directly from the oxidation of petroleum-based linear hydrocarbons (n-paraffins). This impracticality is because the oxidation of n-paraffins produces primarily secondary alcohols, tertiary alcohols or ketones, or a mixture of these compounds, but does not produce high yields of fatty alcohols. Additionally, currently known methods for producing fatty alcohols suffer from the disadvantage that they are restricted to feedstock which is relatively expensive, notably ethylene, which is produced via the thermal cracking of petroleum. In addition, current methods require several steps, and several catalyst types.
Fatty alcohol production by microorganisms involves fatty acid synthesis followed by acyl-reduction steps. The universal fatty acid biosynthesis pathway found in most cells has been investigated for production of fatty alcohols and other fatty acid derivatives. There is currently a great deal of improvement that can be achieved to provide more efficient biosynthesis pathways for fatty alcohol production with significantly higher theoretical product and energy yields.
Thus, there exists a need for alternative means for effectively producing commercial quantities of fatty alcohols. The present invention satisfies this need and provides related advantages as well.